Brian Patrick White was 16 years old when he was killed in St. Louis on Monday, December 31, 2007. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department investigated his death, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in St. Louis through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Brian Patrick White has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, what time of day it happened, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, or whether anyone else was hurt. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect or a motive.
Brian Patrick White's name also appears in a 2018 Washington Post investigation that listed thousands of homicide victims across major American cities whose killings had not led to an arrest. Being on that list means that, a decade after his death, the case was still counted among those for which no one had been arrested.
Brian Patrick White was only 16, and he died on New Year's Eve, Monday, December 31, 2007, on the last day of the year. Fireworks and celebratory gunfire on that night can make it harder for neighbors to recognize trouble, but someone may have seen him that evening. His case is also listed as active on CrimeTea, an online database of unsolved cases.
Searches for his name are crowded with book citations, because the words Brian and Patrick White appear side by side in references to a well-known study of the Australian novelist Patrick White, and with obituaries of older men named Brian Patrick White in other states. None of those records concern the teenager who died in St. Louis.
The location recorded in the database places his death in north St. Louis, near Fairground Park, northwest of downtown. People who lived there on New Year's Eve 2007 may remember the police activity that followed.
St. Louis was, and remains, one of the most violent large cities in the United States. Police counted 138 homicides in the city in 2007 and 167 in 2008, in a city of roughly 350,000 people, and many of those cases were never solved. With so many killings each year, the ones that received no news coverage could slip out of public view within weeks.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Brian Patrick White could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who went to school with Brian White, knew his friends, or saw him on New Year's Eve 2007 may be able to help. People who were teenagers then are now adults, and some may feel able to speak now. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Division at 314-444-5371, or leave an anonymous tip with CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS (866-371-8477).
